News, Information, & Analysis That
Governments, Interest Groups,
and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know!
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Palau (an island of nearly 20,000) is among
those listed by the Bush Administration as
part of the 'Coalition of the Willing' Add to
this the Marshall Islands, Costa Rica, and
Iceland, and it's rather obvious what the
Americans are doing here -- more childish
and grossly disingenuous deception which
they have already taken to unprecedented levels.

"An official at the Moroccan Embassy could
not confirm the presence of monkeys in the
coalition of the willing."

MID-EAST REALITIES - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org
- Washington - 26 March 2003: Nearly everything the Americans
do these days is patently deceptive, dishonest, sometimes quite
unreal. Never more so than the latest big-time public relations
ploys -- a 'Coalition of the Willing' and 'Progress toward a Palestinian
State" What is really happening is far behind-closed-doors and
deep covert, 'black, through the CIA. "Fuck Saddam - we're going to
take him out" -- now that profound summation is real -- actually uttered
by the thought-challenged "Commander-in-Chief" to his also
not-quite-up-to-the-job National Security Adviser last week. And
Bush's inept, repetitious and insecure on-camera practicing before his recent
televisioned speech -- snip-its of which leaked out and got shown overseas but
not to the American public in whose name he claims to speak and drop bombs --
that too was the real boy-President in action. And the ways
official Washington laughs and jests as its limited and embarrassing current
President are also sometimes a little back-page stuff (in this case page 7):

WHITE
HOUSE NOTEBOOK: MANY WILLING, BUT FEW ARE ABLE
By Dana Milbank

[Washington Post - 25 March 2003]: There must have been shock in
Baghdad and awe in Paris last week when the White House announced the news that
Palau had joined the "coalition of the willing."

Palau, an island group of nearly 20,000 souls in the North Pacific, has much to
contribute. It has some of the world's best scuba diving, delectable coconuts
and tapioca. One thing Palau cannot contribute, however, is military support:
It does not have a military.

"It's rather symbolic," said Hersey Kyota, Palau's ambassador to
Washington, of his country's willingness to be listed in the 46-member
coalition of the willing engaged in the Iraq war. Kyota said the president of
Palau, which depends on the U.S. military for its security, on a visit to
Washington, "thought it was a good idea to write a letter of support, so
he did." Kyota said Palau gamely offered its harbors and airports to the
effort, but the offer was graciously declined, as Palau is nowhere near Iraq.

Palau is one of six unarmed nations in the coalition, along with Costa Rica,
Iceland, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and the Solomon Islands. Then there's
Afghanistan.

Asked if Iceland would be supplying troops, ambassador Helgi Agustsson gave a
hearty Scandinavian guffaw. "Of course not -- we have no military,"
he said. "That is a good one, yes." In fact, Agustsson added,
"we laid down weapons sometime in the 14th century," when the
Icelandic military consisted largely of Vikings in pointy helmets. The true
nature of Iceland's role in the coalition of the willing is
"reconstruction and humanitarian assistance," Agustsson said, adding
that this has not been requested yet.

Therein lies the peculiarity of the coalition of the willing. Some on the White
House list, such as Turkey, have been critical of the war and uncooperative.
Many of those on the list, such as the unarmed nations above, will do far less
than countries such as Germany, which adamantly opposed the war but is
defending Turkey from Iraqi missiles. To join the coalition of the willing, a
nation need do nothing more than offer "political support" --
essentially, allow its name to be put on the list.

Administration officials have furnished the list to demonstrate, as Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld argued, that the current coalition "is larger
than the coalition that existed during the Gulf War in 1991." But that
34-member group was an actual military coalition, with all members providing
troops, aircraft, ships or medics.

By that standard, there are only about a half dozen members of the coalition in
the current war. In addition to the 250,000 or so U.S. troops, there are 45,000
from Britain and about 2,000 from Australia. Denmark and Spain have sent a
small number of troops, though not, apparently, for ground combat.

Still, it's not certain exactly who is participating. Poland, for example, had
originally said it would help only in a non-combat role. But the country
acknowledged some of its commandos had participated in the attack when the
Reuters news agency produced photographs of masked Polish soldiers taking
prisoners, scrawling graffiti on a portrait of Saddam Hussein and posing with
U.S. Navy SEALs with an American flag.

Despite the contributions of Poland and the others, the firepower in the Iraq
war is basically all American and British. The other countries involved spend a
combined $25 billion a year on defense, less than Britain by itself and less
than one-tenth of U.S. military spending.

That sounds less impressive than the way White House press secretary Ari
Fleischer described it last week: "All told, the population of coalition
of the willing is approximately 1.18 billion people around the world. The
coalition countries have a combined GDP of approximately $21.7 trillion. Every
major race, religion and ethnic group in the world is represented. The
coalition includes nations from every continent on the globe."

Possibly. But the coalition remainsa work in progress. After initially
including Angola in the coalition of the willing last week, the White House
removed the country without explanation, as first noted by Agence
France-Presse. Angolan embassy officials didn't respond yesterday to phone
calls. With luck, Angola can be replaced by Morocco, if a report yesterday by
UPI is to be believed. According to the wire service, Morocco's weekly al Usbu'
al-Siyassi claimed that Morocco has offered 2,000 monkeys to help detonate land
mines.

An official at the Moroccan Embassy could not confirm the presence of monkeys
in the coalition of the willing.
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